Twenty Three Below

It's been a cold stretch. Last week no one went outside except to get in or out of the car. After three days of indoor recess, I was ready to throw my students into the Merrimack (if it weren't iced over). Then it snowed a foot on Saturday night. We have been essentially hibernating, watching more movies than necessary, adding large pats of butter to every dish, eking out every minute of sleep in order to fight the battery of viruses and bacterial infections that threaten us daily. Yesterday Peter spent the better part of the afternoon shoveling (driveways, walkways, roofs, stairs), while I consumed over 10,000 mg of vitamin C and napped with the kids. It is Winter. Jasper asks almost daily: "When is summer, Mama?" Oh, my darlin'. So very, very far away. 

In the meantime we make the most of our wonderland. We went ice skating on Saturday before the snow started. After screaming, kicking, crying, collapsing, refusing and demanding, Jasper managed to stand on his own skates and kind of have a good time. It was difficult to tell if Josie was having fun because she had shut down her body systems, as is her way in stressful situations. Today we opened up our Extreme Sledding run in the woods behind the house. As you can tell, everyone had a blast.